Part 4 (1/2)
The pagan Mercian king, Penda, was himself slain in the following year by Oswy, the successor to St. Oswald. Bede says ”the battle was fought near the river Vinwed, which then with the great rains had not only filled its channel, but overflowed its banks, so that many more were drowned in the flight than destroyed by the sword.” Most authorities place this battle at Winwidfield, near Leeds. Mr. Thos. Baines, however (”Historical Notes on the Valley of the Mersey,” His. Soc. Lan. and Ches. Pro. session 5), claims for Winwick the scene of both engagements.
He says--”Penda and upwards of thirty of his princ.i.p.al officers were drowned in their flight, having been driven into the river Winweyde, the waters of which were at that time much swollen by heavy rains. There is no stream in England which is more liable to be suddenly flooded than the stream which joins the Mersey below Winwick[23], and there both the resemblance of the names, and the probability of the fact, induce me to think that Penda met with his death within two or three miles of the place at which Oswald had fallen.”
This seems, at first sight, plausible enough, but as Bede distinctly states that ”King Oswy concluded the aforesaid war in the country of Loides” (Leeds), Winwidfield must unquestionably have preference over the Lancas.h.i.+re site, as the scene of Penda's discomfiture and death.
It is generally accepted that Oswald died either at Oswestry or Winwick.
There are some, however, who accept neither, but contend that the true site of the battle may yet, possibly, be found in a different locality.
This appears to be the opinion of Mr. John R. Green. In support of this view he says (”Making of England”)--”Though the conversion of Wess.e.x had prisoned it (Mercia) within the central districts of England, heathendom fought desperately for life. Penda remained its rallying point; and the long reign of the Mercian king was in fact one continuous battle with the Cross. But so far as we can judge from his acts, Penda seemed to have looked on the strife of religion in a purely political light. The point of conflict, as before,” [that is when Edwin was defeated and slain at Hatfield] ”seems to have been the dominion over East Anglia.
Its possession was vital to Mid-Britain as it was to Northumbria, which needed it to link itself with its West-Saxon subjects in the south; and Oswald must have felt that he was challenging his rival to a decisive combat when he marched, in 642, to deliver the East Anglians from Penda.
But his doom was that of Eadwine; for he was overthrown and slain in a battle called the battle of Maserfeld.”
If this view be accepted, the claim of Oswestry must be at once dismissed, while that of Winwick is rendered still more doubtful. But Mr. Green does not state on what authority he relies when he states that Oswald ”marched in 642, to deliver the East-Anglians from Penda.” In consequence I am unable to test its value or probability. He certainly would not march by either Oswestry or Winwick if such were his destination. This statement, however, appears to be not exactly in accordance with another by Mr. Green, previously quoted, in which he says, referring to the antecedents of the war under Oswy, which followed Oswald's death, and in which Penda was slain near the river Winwid--”That Oswiu strove to avert the conflict we see from the delivery of his youngest son Ecgfrith as a hostage into Penda's hands.
The sacrifice, however, proved useless. _Penda was again the a.s.sailant_, and his attack was as vigorous as of old.”
If Penda was the a.s.sailant, his a.s.sault must, in the first instance, have been not on Oswald himself, but on his East-Anglian allies, or Oswald would not have thought of marching in that direction for their relief. But if Penda, having previously humbled the East-Anglians, had become aware of such intention on the part of the Northumbrian monarch, there is nothing improbable in a vigorous warrior of Penda's stamp, by a rapid march, surprising him on the frontier of his own dominions, defeating him, and thus warding off the threatened blow. Under such circ.u.mstances Winwick might very probably have been the scene of the conflict. The advocates of Oswestry do not deny the great probability that Oswald had a favourite residence in the locality.
The neighbourhood of Winwick, however, is the undisputed site of a battle in more recent times. After the Duke of Hamilton's defeat at Preston, by Cromwell, in 1648, the former made a stand against his pursuers at a place called ”Red Bank,” where he was totally routed by the less numerous but highly disciplined army of his more skilful antagonist.
A rude piece of sculpture built in the outer wall, evidently a relic from an older edifice, was long supposed to be a representation of the crest of St. Oswald; but this is disputed by Mr. Edward Baines. He says--”The heralds a.s.sign to that monarch azure, a cross between four lions rampant, or.” He adds--”Superst.i.tion sees in the chained hog the resemblance of a monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast, and which could only be restrained by the subduing force of the sacred edifice.” This sculpture he regards as not improbably a rude attempt to ”represent the crest of the Gerrards--a lion rampant, armed and langued, with a coronet upon the head.” This is certainly more probable than the heralds'
a.s.signment of ”azure, a cross between four lions rampant, or,” to Oswald, which is suggestive of mediaeval Norman-French a.s.sociations and nomenclature, without the slightest Anglo-Saxon ingredient. The late Mr.
T. T. Wilkinson refers to a tradition which a.s.serts that ”the demon-pig not only determined the site of St. Oswald's Church, at Winwick, but gave a name to the parish.” This attempt to solve the enigma by the a.s.sistance of the squeak of a sucking pig, has evidently originated in some rural jesting or lame attempt to divine the connection of the animal with the church and neighbourhood.
This traditionary ”monster in former ages, which prowled over the neighbourhood, inflicting injury on man and beast,” is worthy of a little more serious attention than has. .h.i.therto been paid to it. The legend is evidently but a northern form of the wide-spread Aryan myth concerning Vritra, the dragon, or storm-fiend, who stole the light rain clouds (the ”herds of Indra,” the Sanscrit ”G.o.d of the clear heaven, and of light, warmth, and fertilising rain”), and hid them in the cave of the Panis (the dark storm-cloud). Indra, launching his lightning-spear into the black thunder-cloud, (personified by the dragon, snake, or monster whose poisonous breath parched the earth and destroyed the harvest), released the confined waters and thus refertilised the land.
The Rev. Sir G. W. c.o.x, in his ”Manual of Mythology,” says--”In the Indian tales Indra kills the dragon Vritra, and in the old Norse legend Sigurd kills the great snake Fafnir.” The myth survives in the exploits of the patron saint of England, St. George, the slayer of the dragon.
In one Teutonic form Odin, or Wodin, hunted the wild boar, the representative of the stormy wind-clouds. His tusk was a type of the lightning. This mythical devouring monster is reproduced in Grendel, the ”great scather,” in the old Anglo-Saxon poem ”Beowulf,” the scene of which Mr. D. Haigh, in his ”Conquest of the Britons by the Saxons,”
regards as the neighbourhood of Hartlepool, in Durham.
There exists a great diversity of opinion as to the genesis and original habitat of the poem, Beowulf. Mr. Frederick Metcalfe, in his ”Englishman and Scandinavian,” says--”There is, however, one Saxon work which tells us of the northern mythology, 'Beowulf,' the oldest heroic, or, as some will have it, mythic--perhaps it will be best to call it mytho-heroic--poem in any German language, and which has been p.r.o.nounced to be older than Homer.” In another place he says--”The date of its composition has been much debated. By Conybeare it was thought, in its present shape, to be the work of the bards about Canute's court. The leading incidents of the plot are as follows:--Beowulf, the son of Ecgtheow and prince in Scania (South Sweden), hearing how for twelve years King Hrothgar and his people in North Jutland had been mightily oppressed by a monster, Grendel, resolves to deliver him, and arrives at Hart Hall, the Jutish palace, as an avenger.”
Mr. Benjamin Thorpe, in the preface to his edition of the poem (1855) says--”With respect to this the oldest heroic poem in any Germanic tongue, my opinion is, that it is not an original production of the Anglo-Saxon muse, but a metrical paraphrase of an heroic Saga composed in the south-west of Sweden, in the old common language of the north, and probably brought to this country during the sway of the Danish dynasty. It is in this light only that I can view a work evincing a knowledge of northern localities and persons, hardly to be acquired by a native of England in those days of ignorance with regard to remote foreign parts. And what interest could an Anglo-Saxon feel in the valourous feats of his deadly foes, the northmen? in the encounter of a Sweo-Gothic hero with a monster in Denmark? or with a fire-drake in his own country? The answer, I think, is obvious--_none whatever_.” In a note Mr. Thorpe says--”Let us cherish the hope that the original Saga may one day be discovered in some Swedish library.” The only MS. of the poem extant, (MS. Cott. Vitellius A. 15), he says--”I take to be of the first half of the eleventh century.”
With respect to the strictly historical character of this poem, Mr.
Thorpe says--”Preceding editors have regarded the poem of Beowulf as a myth, and its heroes as beings of a divine order.[24] To my dull perception these appear as real kings and chieftains of the North, some of them as Hygelac and Offa, entering within the pale of authentic history, while the names of others may have perished, either because the records in which they were chronicled are no longer extant, or the individuals themselves were not of sufficient importance to occupy a place in them.”
Mr. Haigh likewise contends for the historic value of the poem; but attributes its locality to Britain. Some of the legends and traditions of the North of England certainly suggest that the Scandinavian population settled there were either acquainted with the poem or the legendary elements which strongly characterise it, and upon which it is evidently mainly constructed, whatever strictly historical matter, as in the romances of Richard Cur de Lion, Charlemagne, Arthur, and others, may have become incorporated therewith.[25]
Mr. John R. Green (”The Making of England”) says, ”The song as we have it now is a poem of the eighth century, the work it may be of some English missionary of the days of Beda and Boniface, who gathered in the homeland of his race the legend of its earlier prime.”
After referring to the interpolations in which there ”is a distinctly Christian element, contrasting strongly with the general heathen current of the whole,” Mr. Sweet, in his ”Sketch of the History of the Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” in Hazlitt's edition of Warton's ”His. of English Poetry,” says--”Without these additions and alterations it is certain that we have in Beowulf a poem composed before the Teutonic conquest of Britain. The localities are purely continental; the scenery is laid amongst the Goths of Sweden and the Danes; in the episodes the Swedes, Frisians, and other continental tribes appear, while there is no mention of England, or the adjoining countries and nations.”
Mr. Jno. Fenton, in an able article on ”Easter” in the _Antiquary_ for April, 1882, says--”To us in western lands the equinox is the beginning of spring and the new life of the year; but in the east it is the beginning of summer, when the early harvest is also ripe, when the sun is parching the gra.s.s and drying up the wells, when, as Egyptian folk-lore has it, a serpent wanders over the earth, infecting the atmosphere with its poisonous breath.”[26]
These mythical huge worms, serpents, dragons, wild boars, and other monsters, ”harvest blasters,” are still very common in the North of England. The famous ”Lambton worm,” of huge dimensions and poisonous breath, when coiled round a hill, was pacified with copious draughts of milk, and his blood flowed freely when he was pierced by the spear-heads attached to the armour of the returned Crusader. The Linton worm curled itself round a hill, and by its poisonous breath destroyed the neighbouring animal and vegetable life. The Pollard worm is described as ”a venomous serpent which did much harm to man and beast,” while that at Stockburn is designated as the ”worm, dragon, or fiery flying serpent, which destroyed man, woman, and child.”
In the ancient romance in English verse, which celebrates the deeds of the renowned Sir Guy, of Warwick, is the following quaint description of a Northumberland dragon, slain by the hero:--
A messenger came to the king.
Syr king he sayd, lysten me now, For bad tydinges I bring you.